tell the world your name
by SerenLyall
Summary: She wakes with no knowledge of her name, her place, her situation. All she knows is that the strange man who finds her and takes her away from her cell is someone who says her name like a prayer.
1. a benediction and a prayer

**disclaimer:** not mine, never will be. *frowny face*

 **rating/warnings:** Teen and Up (though subject to change) / referenced torture, mild violence

 **notes:** I know I should be working on Solis Febris. I know the chapter is short. I know. But I started writing this last night in a fit of depression and anxiety, and actually ended up rather proud of it. I didn't want it to get lost to the depths of my fic folder, so I figured I'd go ahead and post it. I'm looking at it being about 10k? But we'll see what happens.

In any case, I hope you enjoy.

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a benediction and a prayer

Pain.

That is the first thing she notices when she drips awake: pain. It radiates through her chest, a sunburst of needles and pins that stab her lungs with each breath. It is agony, and for a second darkness clouds the shadows that lay imprinted on her vision, stealing away sound, taste, touch. She flounders, stretching out a hand before her as if to part the darkness like a curtain, as if she can pull back the shadows from her eyes and see the world arrayed before her, silver and gold and turquoise.

She blinks.

The shadows fade from black to grey to silver and then, at last, to white. She blinks again, and blurry shapes begin to form before her, large squares and smaller circles, ovals and triangles and behind it all, light.

She takes a breath, and groans. The sound is frail and thin, a spider's silk of sound against the sudden roaring in her ears. She blinks again, risks a second breath, and tries to sit up. The floor is hard and cold beneath her-it is tile or cement, she is not sure which, but the cold leeches through the thin, cotton shirt she wears to steal the warmth of her flesh-and her spine pops. That, at least, does not hurt.

The shapes dissolve into patterns, the patterns back into shapes, and very suddenly she can see.

She is in a small, bare room. The floor is hard, grey cement, the walls and ceiling the same. A single, yellow-white bulb hangs from the ceiling, filling the small room with harsh light.

The grinding of a door sliding open sounds behind her. She turns, and immediately regrets the action as her ribs, which she knows instinctively-though she does not know _how_ she knows-are broken, protest sharply.

A tall, broad-shouldered man stands in the doorway, the light framing his body. She squints, confused and wary. She does not know him.

She realizes, with a jolt, that she does not know herself, either.

The man barges into the room. "Spirits," he breathes, and kneels beside her. She can see now that he has a strong jaw and dark eyes, framed by closely cropped dark hair. His eyes are kind, and warm, and inviting of trust.

She does not trust him.

"Kathryn."

She frowns. _Kathryn._ The name is like a benediction, a prayer on this man's tongue.

Is that her name? Kathryn?

She blinks, and the man's face swims. It takes her a second before she realizes it is tears seeping out of the corners of her eyes that are to blame. She is relieved-immensely, hugely relieved-to see this man, though she cannot say why.

She still does not trust him.

He offers a hand. She takes it warily, and he helps her to her feet.

"Come on," he says. "I'm getting you out of here."

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 **end notes:** What did you think? Let me know!


	2. run, run, run to golden rain

**notes:** Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter. I forgot how receptive and interactive the Voyager fandom is. I hope you enjoy this chapter as well!

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run, run, run to golden rain

The corridor she steps into, following the man's broad shoulders, is made of concrete and mortar and hazy, yellow light that is filled with smoke. She chokes on the acrid stench of burning things: burning wood, burning stone, burning flesh. Her ribs spiral into pain, making her gasp, and a low throb echoes in her belly. She leans over and throws up.

The bile is bloody, dark like coffee grounds. She—Kathryn—wonders how she knows that it looks like coffee grounds; she wonders how she knows that means it is bloody. The pain of throwing up is astounding, and for a second darkness sweeps up and over her, threatening to drag her down, down, down into a pit of black.

The man doubles back at the sound of her retching. He sees the vomit on the floor and curses.

"Come on," he says, and grips her by the elbow. "I have to get you out to the beam-out point."

She frowns. "What?" The words are familiar, like a half-remembered memory, but she does not know what they mean.

"The beam-out point. We're too far underground for the transporters, so we have to go up. And we have to hurry. I don't know how much longer the away team will be able to hold off the K'miri forces."

She—Kathryn—blinks. Again the words are familiar, ringing like a half-forgotten song in her mind and amid her thoughts. Still, though, she does not know what they mean.

The man sees her confusion. His face softens. "Come on," is all he says, however, and he guides her down the hall with a hand still beneath her elbow.

The ground slopes up beneath their feet, climbing steadily upward, even as the hallway doubles back against itself again and again and again. They pass doors—some open and some closed, some dark and some light, some whole and some blasted to pieces—and alcoves and other branching corridors. Never, though, do they pass a window. She—Kathryn—supposes this is because they are underground.

The smoke thickens the higher they climb. She finds it difficult to breathe, all the more so because of the pain, and she begins to pant. The man does not slow their pace.

"We're almost there," he says, as they reach the first of the dead.

The dead do not look like the man—or like her, she realizes she somehow knows, just as she knew about coffee grounds, just as she knew about bloody bile. They are short and squat, nearly half her height, with scaled faces and necks and hands, torsos and stomachs and legs. Their eyes, open and staring sightless into death, are flat and yellow, slit twice in black and once in blue. Their mouths protrude from their faces, sporting sharp teeth capped in fangs.

At the sight of those fangs, her—Kathryn's—shoulders throb, as if remembering half-healed wounds. She swallows down bile once more.

"They're holding the doors into the prison complex, which is where the beam-out site is," says the man. "We killed the guards inside, and now—"

They reach a large rotunda. Double doors sit on the far end, barred and locked against a great pounding. More corpses fill the atrium, covering the tiled floor with death. There are people here who are alive too, though—men and women in yellow and black uniforms very like the man's, whose is red.

"Commander," calls one of the men dressed in yellow, standing from his position behind a pillar. He had been aiming a weapon at the double doors, but now he holsters it and comes forward. "And captain!"

She—Kathryn—wonders who the captain is.

"Let's go," says the man guiding her.

The rest of the men and women in yellow stand and form a tight circle around her—Kathryn—and the man still supporting her elbow. They move toward the double doors, which at the last second they unbar. The doors swing open, revealing a seething mass of aliens all armed and furious.

"Beam us out!" the man cries, slapping the insignia on his breast.

A warm tingle sweeps over and through her—Kathryn—and the world dissolves in a golden rain.

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 **end notes:** So what did you think?


	3. a man without a name

**notes:** holy shit, I forgot to update this last time I updated on AO3? I'm so, SO sorry. I'm uploading Chapter 4 too here shortly...

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a man without a name

He takes her to see "The Doctor". What The Doctor's real name is, she does not know, and she cannot get an answer from the man escorting her. He just smiles when she asks, and laughs, saying, "That is the question of the year, isn't it?"

The Doctor is a short, balding man with sharp eyes and a sharp chin. His tone is brisk and no-nonsense, which she finds oddly reassuring. He orders her up onto a bed, and runs a small device up and down her body. She hears the matching device in The Doctor's hands beep, and he frowns.

"You have five broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as numerous lacerations and contusions. The rib breaks aren't clean; have you been having difficulties breathing?"

She nods.

"I suspected as much. Two of the ribs are pressing against your right lung. Breathing should be agonizing."

"It is," she says softly. She dares not speak any louder; any louder and she will have to take more than a sip of breath.

The Doctor nods, and disappears for a moment. When he returns, he instructs her to lay down on the bed, and to hold still. He affixes another device to her forehead, and then administers a hypo. For a long second nothing happens; she is awake and cogent, looking up at the ceiling and the recessed lights.

Then she is asleep.


	4. sharp eyes, sharp fears

**notes:** as promised, here's the next chapter...

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sharp eyes, sharp fears

When she wakes again, it is to dim lighting and the sound of perfectly in-tune humming. She sits up slowly, expecting pain—and feeling none. She takes a breath, and once again finds herself amazed at her lack of agony. She takes two more deep lung-fulls, reveling in the freedom of it, and then settles herself back down onto one elbow.

The Doctor appears from the glassed-in section that she assumes is his office. The humming, she realizes as it stops, came from him. She cants her head to one side, considering him, wondering if she can trust him. Something in her says she can, just as she felt inexplicable relief at seeing the man in the cell.

"Who are you?" she asks, as The Doctor draws near.

The Doctor looks shocked. "I'm The Doctor," he says simply. He frowns. "Are you well, Captain?"

 _Captain_. There was that word again. Did it mean her? Was that another part of her name? A title? A rank? If so, what was she the captain _of_?

"I'm fine," she says quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly, she decides, seeing The Doctor's strange look. "I'm just a little confused."

"Confused how?"

She weighs her options. Does she trust this man?

Everything in her screams yes.

Everything in her screams no.

She buries her face in her hands, torn and frustrated and afraid, biting her lower lip until it bleeds.

 _Who am I?_ she wants to ask.

 _Who are you?_

 _Where am I?_

 _What is this place?_

She asks none of those questions.

Instead she says, looking up and licking the blood from her lip, "I'm just a little dazed is all, and not really sure what happened down...there. In the cell."

The Doctor shakes his head. "We don't know either. We had hoped you could tell _us_."

It is her turn to shake her head. "The first thing I remember is waking up. Then…" She falters. She does not know the man's name.

She thinks.

She should know him. Everything in her being shrieks that she knows him. That he is someone important to her. Someone…. _someone_.

But what does this feeling mean? Is he someone dear to her heart? Someone she loves?

She casts her mind back, back, back into the darkness that comes before her awakening in the cell. Murky images swim, shadowed and a thousand shades of black. For an instant—a blink, a heartbeat, a thought—she seems the man who had come for her's face, bright and smiling, lit by candlelight. Then it fades away, and there is only the morass of shadows once more.

"Captain?"

She swings her legs over the edge of the bed. "I'm feeling much better," she says. "Can I go?"

She is anxious to be away from this sharp man, who sees too much. She fears that sight will blend into understanding, and she is afraid of him knowing the truth. She does not understand who she is herself; she does not know these people, though her heart wails in what can only be love. She cannot trust them, when she does not trust herself.

The Doctor frowns. He frowns a lot, she decides. He ponders, but then sighs and nods. "You'll just leave anyway, even if I tell you not to."

She smiles. That does, somehow, sound like her.

"You may go. But I expect you back in here first thing in the morning for a check-up."

She nods. "Okay."

She leaves on steady feet, holding herself rigid. She feels The Doctor's eyes on her back, straight and tense, and she does not relax until she is out of the sickbay, the door sliding shut behind her, hiding her from view.


	5. may silver star-stream comfort you

**notes:** Well, it wasn't quite so long since I last updated this time... Thanks to the bookclub chat, which inspired me to work on this again tonight!

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may silver star-stream comfort you

She ghosts through the hallways for long hours, lost in thought.

It only takes her a few moments to realize that she is on a ship-and only a few moments longer to realize that she knows this ship, with its lit displays and its sleek lines and its rich carpets singed in a few places by sparks that once upon a time spat from broken screens. She stands for a long time at a viewport-like everything else she knows, she does not know how she knows that this window is called a viewport-staring at the stream of stars sliding past in a beautiful conflagration of silver and white and grey. She blinks back tears at the sight, something deep within her awakening and reaching out for that star-stream-something known and knowing, that longs for and knows it with an intimate understanding.

All through her wanderings, she thinks.

She thinks about who she is- _wonders_ who she is. She thinks about where she is-where this ship is, what this ship is, what this ship means to her. She thinks about The Doctor, wit his perfect humming and his sharp eyes; she thinks about the man who spoke her name like a prayer. She wonders who they are, and who they are to her, and why they are here.

She finds she has no answers.

Eventually she finds the commissary. She walks slowly towards the back, corner table that calls to her, inviting her to sit at it with grey arms and grey silence. She obeys the call, perching in a chair angled away from the door and toward one of the long viewports that fill the wall. She blinks tired eyes, and settles deeper into the chair, fighting to keep from yawning.

It strikes her, very suddenly, that she does not know where her quarters are-or even if she has quarters on this ship.

The sound of the door opening and closing breaks into her panic. She turns, and finds a short, squat man with whiskers on his face and spots on his temples drawing near. He smiles warmly at the sight of her, and exclaims, "Captain! I thought I might find you here, when I didn't find you at your quarters."

"What can I do for you…" She realizes she does not know his name, and so trails off helplessly, hoping he does not pick up on her uncertainty.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," says the man-the _Talaxian_ , she realizes she knows. He is a Talaxian, and she is a Human. "I just thought you might like a cup of coffee-decaf, of course, because The Doctor would have my skin if I offered you caffeinated coffee so soon after your release from Sickbay."

She frowns.

"Don't worry-this cup is on me," says the Talaxian kindly.

He has been walking toward her this whole time, a thermos in one hand. He sits down at her table at last, with an added, "And it's the real stuff too-not any of my perfectly good substitutes."

She unscrews the cap of the thermos, and takes a careful sip. It is warm, and rich, and aromatic. It pours over her tongue and sinks down her throat, hot and intoxicating in a way that she thinks nothing could compare if she were to live to be a thousand years old. She takes another, stronger sip, then another, then a third. The Talaxian grins.

"How are you doing, Captain?" he asks after a few minutes of silence, in which she goes back to looking out of the viewport, and the Talaxian watches her.

"I'm fine." The lie comes easy to her tongue. She thinks she must have made that lie before.

"Hm," the Talaxian says. She wonders if he believes her.

Whether or not he believes her, however, he simply rises and says, "I hope you will tell me if you need anything."

"I will," she-Kathrn-says with a smile that, to her at least, means nothing.

"Good, good," says the Talaxian. "Well, I had better go start breakfast." With that he bustles away, disappearing a few seconds later into the attached kitchen, leaving Kathryn alone with her coffee and the star-stream.

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 **end notes:** Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Let me know!


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